Mikhail Tomsky

Mikhail Pavlovich Tomsky (31 October 1880-22 August 1936) was Chairman of the Presidium of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions from September 1922 to May 1929, preceding Alexander Dogadov.

Biography
Mikhail Tomsky was born in Kolpino, Russian Empire in 1880, and his family later moved to Estonia. Tomsky attempted to form a trade union at his factory in St. Petersburg, resulting in his dismissal. His labor activities radicalized him politically and led him to become a socialist and join the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1904 and eventually join the Bolshevik faction of the party. He was exiled to France in 1908, but he returned to Russia a year later, where he was sentenced to five years of hard labor. He was freed by the Russian Provisional Government after the February Revolution of 1917. He was elected to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Committee in March 1919 and to the Orgburo in 1921, later joining the moderate wing of the party alongside Nikolai Bukharin and Alexei Rykov. They were allied with Joseph Stalin's faction, and they helped Stalin in purging Leon Trotsky, Lev Kamenev, and Grigoriy Zinoviev during the power struggle that followed Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924. In 1928, Stalin moved against his former allies, and Tomsky was forced to resign as the leader of the trade union movement. From 1932 to 1936, he headed the State Publishing House, and he was fired after being accused of "terrorist connections". Tomsky committed suicide rather than be arrested and tortured by the NKVD.